Custom Fields can now be added to record imformation about your staff that is important to your business.

To make use of this valuable feature you should first turn it on by going to Admin > System Functionality > Set Functionality Required and tick 'Extra User Fields'.

Then you will want to add the new fields by going to Admin > System Functionality > Extras. Here you can add the fields that you want. There are 10 each of the following data types:

Title - text and headings to define sections

Bit - a true/false option presented as a checkbox

Date - with date picker

Decimal - to 4 decimal places

Int - whole numbers

Varchar - short text

VarCharMax - multiple lines of text

Each extra field can be set to be completed by management only or management and the employee themselves. The display order of each field can be controlled to suit your needs. Client Admin access to these fields is People > Employee name > Extras and employees can find them at My details > Extras.

Features still to come include custom help files for each custom field, facility to build dropdown menus and a report to see the extra fields at a company level.

A file can be uploaded, accessible by everyone in your Company such as your Company Handbooks or by an individual employee such as their Contract of employment. Until now this was a library of files that the employee/HR could access for reference. Any access they made was logged.

In addition to this you can now set that the employee is REQUIRED to read and/or accept them with a digital signature. This might be amendments to their contract or new versions of an important Company document. Any document that still needs read or signed will be highlighted on the employees Dashboard. HR have access to a list of documents where these actions are still outstanding.

You have always been able to add tasks to yourself, another employee or a group that can then be collected by an employe in that group or assigned by the manager.

We have now added a new way to add a task for everyone in the company, a task to everyone in one or more groups or a task for a selection of people. Basically this means you can add one task to more than one person. It might be to read the newly drafted Company Handbook or sign off a document or submit expenses.

To use the ToDo module it should be turned on in Admin > System Functionality > Set Functionality Required and the tasks can then be added by going to Actions > ToDo's > ToDo Menu.

Our software is designed to assist the recording and management of information both during the time of the individual's employment with your Company and after it has ended for the benefit of the Company. Your employer is required by law to keep this information and the employee is obliged to provide it ,usually contractually.

A number of updates have been made to the system to meet the new GDPR legislation that is coming into effect on the 25th May 2018. A summary of the major changes are:

If your company DOES NOT use its own GDPR system and records your staff's consent - then you may enable the GDPR consent feature in this system by going to Admin > System Functionality > Set Functionality Required. It is turned OFF by default.

A new functionality role of GDPR Admin/DPO has been added. At least one employee should be given this role in order to manage the new data processing features listed below.

A new GDPR menu can be found in the top menu of the Dashboard.

Each member of staff has the option to Accept or Withdraw their consent to have their data recorded in this software. Consent is initially set as given for all existing employees and employees added in the future to minimise disruption. The withdrawal of consent will send an email to the GDPR Admin/DPO informing them of the decision and remove the employee's access to the software. Future access can be regained by accepting the use of your data in this software. Withdrawing your consent will severely limit your ability to use the software but other staff such as your manager and your Human Resource team will still be able to use the software on your behalf.

The GDPR Admín can withdraw and accept your data to be used on your behalf and can upload documents to show acceptance has been given outside of this software.

A history of the employee and the DPO's choices are kept and the latest decision from either party takes effect.

Personal information for the employee can be Removed upon request by the GDPR Admin. This includes data such as personal addresses, bank details, birth date, personal email addresses and medical information etc. This does not include company information such as training records, expenses, leave, sickness and injury records etc.

An individual employee's data or your entire recorded history can be exported from the software by the use of the reports.

An officially written request can be made to delete your site completely. This will destroy ALL of your data FOREVER.

There is now a mobile-friendly site to complement its big screen brother for on the go actions. These include requesting leave, approving leave, record an injury, add an expense claim and individual claim lines/receipts, request training, add a task and search your internal directory. You can find this site from links on the main page's login screen or by adding /mobile to the end of our URL e.g. https://ewassist.co.uk/mobile.

Make sure you bookmark the site on your phone so you can use it on the go.

Visitor logging is now available by going to Directory > Visitors. Your staff can prebook their visitors and give reception a better idea of who to expect or book as they walk through the door. It also gives you a clear view of who is still in the building for fire regulations.

Expense claims can be raised by your employees and include catergorised expenditure, mileage, advances and returns. Receipts and invoices etc can be uploaded to support the claim. Once complete employees can submit the claim to be approved by their manager or returned to the employee for alteration with manager notes. Once happy the manager can sign them off to be processed by accounts. Accounts can adjust the VAT element and clear the claims for payment in batches. Claims marked for payment are reflected as such for the employee. Claims are fully searchable.

Claims can be raised for any currencies (set in the admin area) and claim lines in any currency and then converted to the claim currency with up to date exchange rates.

Claim lines can be categorised and reported on.

Comprehensive reports provide a detailed view of the expenses including a payroll report for cleared expenses.

Recent improvements

The punch clock (in/out) has been overhauled to provide a better experience with more choices of punch terminal.

A new Functionality Role of Emergency Contact Admin allows employees to see the home address and next of kin information of all staff. This is useful for a simple users of EW Assist to have access to this information when the Client Admin is away from the office.

A new report has been added to show the status of staff appriasals at Reports > Performance.

Support Documents can be uploaded and shown to an employee when completing their appraisal. The document is uploaded at Admin > Files and linked to the appropriate apprasial.

Training can be cancelled after it has been set as current by the Training Admin more easily.

After a busy period of development we have made live the changes which are primarily there to make the software easier to use. An exciting new addition is the new document/file management system which lays across the whole site and supports other areas.

Newly added employees can now be added with their work pattern, working year calendar and mandatory leave calendar.

Edit links have been added to People, Groups and Areas making it quicker to reach the edit page

A Notes area is now available to add your own messages and reminders about each employee in People > Person

A development plans page is now available in the footer of the site which gives details of currently available modules and future ones

Better controls have been added to help the system decide where best to go from one page to another

The People page has moved the licence information to one side and included the employees first name

The layout of some fields have been adjusted to provide a better user experience

The Calendars now include a list of the employees who are using them and allow for an employee to be moved from one to another, in a similar way to the work patterns

Welcome emails can now be sent to all site roles including Client Admins from the Resend welcome email link in their People > Person > Edit page

Messages can now be presented from the development team via the login page

Navigation though the site has been improved

'Specific to' has been removed from the work pattern > Add page

Sickness

The sickness interview now starts in a state where it can be closed immediately on completion rather than having to start the interview first

Expected return to work dates highlight red in the dashboard when they fall in the past. This date should be either updated or the actual return to work date should be added (if the employee has returned)

Leave

Added a totaliser form to the leave year page for an employee which allows you to specify exactly how much you want the total entitlement to be and the software works out what the adjustment should be. This will be particularly useful when rounding up or down for a new starter.

Mandatory leave that is zero days due to the employee not working on that day is now not shown in their leave list

Added a button to trigger the recalculation of mandatory leave when a new date has been added to an existing year

Hours and days are better represented across the system

The Leave Year page includes the average working day information to help with certain adjustments

Leave Years are created in one step - no need to refresh the page

The urgent warning when recreating a leave year has been removed

ToDos

Tasks have been styled to allow better presentation of the information

Training

Criminal Records Bureau checks (CRB) have been replaced with the new Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) although CRBs can still be recorded for the sake of historical records

Records for the Training Courses Attended (TCA) are styled to allow better presentation of the information

HR Lite/Equality and Diversity

Sex and date of birth can now be completed by the employee themselves at My Details > Work